The starting problem
by I'm Nova
Summary: People always take Molly for granted. They think she's the shy, pushover pathologist anyone can use. Too bad she's instead a ruthless woman who, like Toby, enjoys playing with her victims. And recruiting all the not boring people she can find. Dark!Molly, for HiddenLacuna. M rating for dark themes, no love sadly.


_Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. A.N. This is a response to the (repeated, in case you think I've had a brain-fart) url prompt from sherlockchallenges on Tumblr. The amazing Hiddenlacuna kindly lent me her name to play with. I hope you're not disappointed, my dear! My brain went to some really weird places, and all started from the unnoticed missing organs in Molly's morgue. (Seriously, someone explain this to me). XD Also, apologies for being late, but July was crazy – everyone in my family had their birthdays, I had some teeth trouble (thankfully they don't hurt anymore even if I still need to have work done on them) and the heat was near unbearable. The mix was not conducive to much writing. Sorry again!_

The starting problem

Molly snickered. The latest message from Euros (of course they had set up a way to regularly exchange messages…men were so blind) said that everything had gone splendidly. Her friend – well, as much as two girls like them could be – finally had what she wanted. Easy, if you knew which buttons to push.

Molly always knew what made people tick. And before you make the horrible error of thinking she learned it from her boyfriend, Jim Moriarty…consider that he was still playing games when he met her. Like a child, really. It was only afterwards that he displayed perfect manipulative skills. Did you ever wonder why?

Of course you didn't. Nobody did. Mousy Molly, everyone called her behind her back – she knew. But what everyone forgot was that she was a cat lady, _and_ a pathologist. She _played_ with her victims, she wasn't one. If this required some acting, letting people think that they could walk all over her – so be it. Allowing your adversary to underestimate you was always a good strategy. If people thought that she picked her specialization because she was too shy to deal with regular patients, and not because she loved cutting people open and see how they worked without the hassle of having to put everything back in order, that was brilliant.

How nobody noticed that her moral compass was at least a bit skewed after she started associating with Sherlock surprised even her. Was she supposed to be completely devoid of agency just because he paid her an obviously fake compliment or two? Seriously, people! But his tastes aligned with her own – Donovan was right, he could have the making of a brilliant criminal if she'd been allowed to gently manipulate him. Pity that he was too busy making doe eyes at that blogger of his most of the time!

She started stitching back her latest 'patient'. An old man, with a brilliant case of hairy cell leukaemia. If she kept some mementoes, or more than some, to be honest, nobody would notice. Chemo, even useless, did a number on people. If the man was lighter than the relatives would expect, they'd blame it on the illness. Not on missing an organ or two. Especially not when the pathologist on the case was that kind, meek girl. (How people survived at all, before arriving on her table, was a mystery to Molly).

Sherlock was right about one thing at least – most humans were completely idiotic. The fact is – even the world's only consulting detective and his omnipotent brother (more like pretentious, really) – missed her completely. She even told the sleuth that she was an orphan, but did he care when that happened, or what she had to go through after? Of course not. She was there, and she was helping him out, so it couldn't have been that bad, could it? Who cared anyway, when there was Jim to contend with?

She would have lied, if he'd asked, of course. But if anyone had taken the time to dig, they would have found that daddy died when she was still a child, and mum…well, she was overworked and just wanted to sleep. It had been an accident. She forgot that she had already taken some pills. (It hadn't been. She hadn't thought that Molly was worth sticking around for. Not that she blamed mum. At the time, little Molly was completely useless and, apparently, not even sad enough. Much less interesting enough. Much less…oh, who had the time to list all that.)

And once she was alone, and – once again – not sad enough, for the people who found her…what else was there for her but going to a 'special place'. Luckily for her, it turned out to be the same place where Euros was brought a couple of years later. Frankly, taking her under her wing was the best thing that Molly had ever done.

Sure, they (there was always a they, but Molly had already learned how to deal with anyone at such a young age) had taken her little friend again. Honestly, if anyone had bothered to listen – and talk – to her, possibly the weirdly named girl would still be at her home – but that would have been a loss for Molls, so she certainly didn't regret it. But the girls knew how to plan around idiots, and a then tiny Euros had sent messages that made Molly giggle to no end about being a princess in a castle, waiting for a nod to come visit. _They_ feared the Holmes sister, but still underestimated her, which is how she could get around the prison's precautions. As if just by being small and mostly quiet (unless she wanted something) she didn't deserve as much care as a couple of mindless cannibals (everyone was _not_ a doctor Lecter) or 'butcher-type' serial killers.

Molly had changed her last name (but seriously, Mycroft bloody Holmes should have noticed that), charmed yet someone else, and went on to build the life she deserved. And then, of course, there had been Jim. Another one of her little projects. Stamford wasn't the only one who had the makings of a teacher.

Jim, like everyone else, had bought into her façade. Thought he could use her. Umph. At the time, he had built his brand – cheers to him for not stopping at petty revenge murder and seeing the sore need for some _brains_ in most crimes, really – carefully on secrets…and then decided to go public. Jack the ripper public. Without the bad poetry and the monotony of method, thank God, because that would have been intolerable.

That he wasn't just a random IT boy was obvious. Not with the previous IT leader – someone who might well have worked with Turing, given his age – ending on her slab a couple days before, and the 'adorable' substitute obviously engineering a meet cute the very day after getting his job. Honestly, there were enough doctors, nurses and various personnel in the hospital that should have attracted his attention before he even knew that Mousy Molly existed. Too rushed - definitely. She barely stopped herself from clicking her tongue at him.

She had great fun forcing him to play 'normal' for her. She could see him itching to leave, or scream, but she hadn't introduced him to Sherlock yet so – another Glee episode it was. Hey, if she could do it all the time, he could do it for a week. Then she decided to test how clever he really was.

Molly laughed at herself, thanking him for indulging her silly tastes, and promised that the next thing they'd watch would be much more interesting for a man. But instead of actually letting him pick a movie or show, she put on _From Russia With Love_ … and beckoned Toby to her, having him settle on her knees. Toby was a rarity, as a tortoiseshell-and-white male…and his purring was so loud that it almost drowned the telly when she started petting him.

At first Jim didn't mind – he even tried to join in petting the furball, their hands meeting on sleek flanks…but as much as Toby loved both cuddles and her boyfriend (due to the treats he kept in his pockets, really the man was going a long way to win over his entry to Sherlock Holmes), her little boy was very sensitive, and too much – especially if the touch wasn't properly synchronized – would annoy him. He swiped at Jim, thankfully without claws, but a clear enough message. There she was, enjoying the love of her baby, and Blofeld was on screen…After a while, Jim started giving her side glances that weren't entirely the smitten cover he had stuck to.

Nothing happened that day – a measure of carefulness wasn't bad, she was ready to admit – but when she picked Thunderball the following day, he finally started to get the hint. She wasn't showing him James Bond, or even Connery's Bond. She was hammering home the 'villain with a cat' trope, and finally he gave up. It started with a joke, of course. Still testing the waters. But when she admitted to her inclinations, and called him out on his projects – it was a risk, of course, but Jim had been downright enthusiastic.

They had broken the relationship, openly. But Moriarty still came round, sharing plans and – when she proved that her ideas weren't just interesting, they actually bettered his projects, which he didn't like to admit – acknowledged her as more than a non-judgmental public, but as a partner. The game was already too far underway to make substantial modifications to it, obviously. But the result of their cooperation – and of introducing him to Euros, first by messages and then, when her friend managed to have her way, in person – were brilliant. And he didn't mind the occasional guidance together with her help.

What was better than a production where the two nemeses fake-suicided at each other, after all? Molly would be pulling everyone's strings, and making sure that their favourite toy left that annoying blogger behind. Of course everyone else involved agreed - they all loved playing with people. The detail that went unmentioned as blatant was that 'people' meant preferably Sherlock, but the boy was just begging to be used, as Irene too would be eager to confirm.

Seriously, how Sherlock could pine for his flatmate was a mystery. Military kink was all well and good, Molly understood that. But intelligence-wise, she doubted that John bloody Watson could even be the pet Jim liked to joke about. He was more like…an ant, that was it! Loved structure, and could carry out his own kind of tasks, preferably with his own peers, but it was completely useless to talk to him. Or at him, really. There was a reason she took a long time remembering his name. Why should she? Any of them would be a better partner for the world's only consulting detective (yep, even his own sister, if you were a fan of Egyptian pharaohs and such).

And yet, despite all their attempts (Jim's obvious ones, Euros fucking up the former soldier's morality – the only thing he had going for him – by carefully worded therapy and some drugs slipped in the offered water, Molly offering to be his substitute time and again, implicitly and explicitly) they still failed. Euros' message was enthusiastic about gaining back her brother's attention and cuddles, but if she managed to kill and /or completely drive the two of them apart, she would surely have gloated about that, too.

Oh well. That left her a goal still. It was good to have goals. Now it was Jim's turn again, given that Eurus wouldn't want to risk her duets by starting another Rube-Goldberg plan. Besides, he deserved a reward for not minding helping them even when their requests were silly. Then again, Jim did have a whimsical streak a mile wide.

Of course, any of them could have simply murdered the former soldier. But having Sherlock willingly leave him was so much more satisfying. They'd get there. Heck, they sort-of got there, but not enough to keep him away on a regular basis. And the reverse (that had been the consulting criminal's idea, of course, and she was always doubtful about it, even while she allowed it), have the blogger leave him behind, had been so disappointing, and that idiot sleuth almost made himself unable to play properly with _any_ of them. Honestly.

Molly thought that Eurus had the right idea, in turning Watson despicable, but it looked as if Sherlock was willing to give him another chance. No self-preservation at all, that boy. Then again, that was what made it so fun playing with him, wasn't it?

They'd get there. Okay, more like she would get there – it was starting to be obvious that, despite working with a couple of not boring people (which really was more than could be said for a staggering majority), she would have to be the brain of the situation. As in, ignoring whatever they said and come up with an idea all on her own. …Okay, maybe not on her own. Toby was rubbing against her legs and purring. He might come up with the solution to their problem. Not final…never final, they wanted to have many more games when Sherlock was finally free of the millstone around his neck. And she hadn't completely given up on recruiting him, someday.


End file.
